Beautiful Book Covers

The title says it all. ;) I follow several book-related Tumblr blogs and though I'd share some of the pretty covers I see over there. Like these ones:



Aren't they gorgeous? You can find more info here.

Yes, they are very nice. And a great idea for a thread, too. I hope others will post some of their favorites.

Ohh, I really like those covers. Lovely.

I love the covers of the Twilight series, even though I've never read them.

I really, really like the cover of 1Q84's hardback edition. How the dustjacket lines up with the printed photo on the cover itself. And then the colorful title on the spine. The only thing that saddens me is the fact that the dustjacket is such a delicate paper that it's started to tear around the edges. And also, since I removed it so I wouldn't damage it when reading the book, the book's face itself has soiled a bit... (Would this classify as a first world grievance?) :(

Kinuko Craft is my favourite. I just love her covers:
htt

I love John Howe's artwork for Robin Hobb's books, particularly The Mad Ship:

Nice thread! I have some good ones, too.
How do I add pics to my post?

I love this cover for Scott Lynch's upcoming book Republic of Thieves

Also, this version of Gardens of the Moon

>5 Severn:, 6: Those are some of my favourites too. I'll buy pretty much anything with a Kinuko Craft cover.

#7 Ennas: Just Google the image you want, copy the image URL and then insert it here like this:

(img src="imageurl.jpg"/)

Just be sure to use angle brackets instead of round parenthesis -- ( and ).

You can find this and more info on this topic: How to do fancy things in your posts.

Oh, Severn, those are gorgeous!

YA book covers are more designed to shock than impress the reader with beauty. Two covers over the years have really stopped me in my tracks:



and



The first time I saw this cover I thought it was just a black hoodie being zippered up (every other student on this campus wears a black hoodie). Then I realized it was a body bag. It sat me back in my chair!

Thanks, Delirium!

Some of my favorites:







And I think a topic with ugly covers would be interesting, too. :-)

Sorry pardon, but one of my favourites is one of my own. I think Elizma Fouché (the designer) did me a brilliant favour with this one:

Oh, that's lovely, Hugh! I adore maps and all things map-related and old-timey illustrations like that... :)

This one isn't exactly beautiful as it is clever. The cover alludes to the fact that the book covers subjects such as synesthesia and other quirky brain phenomena:

#5

Again, a sign that taste is in the beholder. These covers are too busy! i'd avoid the books.

#16 gilroy
Exactly. That's why there's a "Beautiful Book Covers" thread and a complementary "Ugly Book Covers" thread. So everyone can post whatever covers they themselves, individually, think are either beautiful or ugly.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," or as we say in Spanish "Para los gustos, los colores" (there is a color for every taste).

;)

I've certainly noticed trends in covers. One of the recent ones (for fantasy) is like the first one Ennas posted - a white background with an ornate object in the foreground (or a shapely person) and a wispy, ghostish design in the background, usually in luscious, dark colours.

That's not to say it isn't pretty - it works well! I've just noticed it being very common recently. Like epic, highly detailed ones like Severn's post in the early 90s was common then. The SF ones of the 50s to 70s are fun too!

This cover is what got me into fantasy originally:


Cant remember how well it realtes to the story, but I still love it - so pretty :)

:)

Apparently, this is just an art project and not actual covers of books for sale, but aren't they pretty? Just click on the picture to see more info on other covers.

Wow!

@16 - not that I mind that you don't like the covers...but ...you'd avoid the books entirely just because of their covers?

Interesting.

#23 And that's where the saying goes: "Don't judge a book by its cover." ;P~

I can understand to a degree. There are some styles of cover that will turn me off a book, because it's a cover that turns up on a book aimed at a particular demographic, and I'll be very wary of reading anything aimed at some demographics. A topless muscleman with flowing locks and a half-naked pouting woman on a cover will generally tell me that it's not the sort of book I'm going to like.

A topless muscleman with flowing locks and a half-naked pouting woman on a cover will generally tell me that it's not the sort of book I'm going to like.

I avoid those books like the plague. I don't care how good it is supposed to be. No way, no how.

I, too, judge books by covers; but really, since I've joined LT I very seldom go shopping for books according to book covers. I shop according to reputation, reviews, authors, or if it is part of a group read. Some older science fiction books have some amazingly bad covers and yet are very good reads!

These James Bond covers are simply gorgeous. (Click on the image for more.)

Here's a taste -- my favorite because it's purple ;)

Sweet!

#31 Hmmm... spam much?

Not exactly covers as spines, but aren't they soooo pretty? :)

Those are really, really pretty. I'd love to have them. And I like reading those, too.

Me too :)

And these, I really need to get started on these:

#32 - I want!!!!

#34 - ???

Seanie: sorry, you must have posted that right when I was trying to fix the image. It's now fixed. ;)

28: Those Bond covers are amazing.

34: I love the simplicity of these, with the family crest animal only. Where did you find them?

#37
I follow several book blogs on Tumblr, so I got the pictures from one of them, can't remember which one, sorrry! :(

Gorgeous hardcovers/hardbacks:

#39 *wants them all*

Call me weird, but I like this one:



and this one:

You're not weird, those are beautiful (and cool)!

I especially like the steampunk vibe of the last one.

I love (32) and (39).

I have never read the (color) fairy books...just Grimm's and Anderson's. I guess I am deprived...

There's a TED talk about cover design, including the 1Q84 cover:
Chip Kidd: Designing books is no laughing matter. OK, it is.

39: I love this Leatherbound series from Barnes & Nobles.

I was going to post a picture of the ones I currently have, beat me to it. I think they look really nice on the shelf, of which I already have six of them.

#45 Oh, right, B&N! *facepalm* I totally forgot that's where I got my leatherbound copy of The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll. That's the only one I have, though... so far. :D I don't live in the US, and there's no B&N where I live. But next time I visit my aunt in Miami I'm so going in to get more of these. I could order them online, but the shipping costs for those heavy books would be kind of on the expensive side...

#44 Thanks! *bookmarks link*

Re-awakening this thread: I have to admit to liking the cover of the recently-published book on Strelitzia by Prof. H. Baijnath.

>47 hfglen: Very nice.

I'm surprised at the number of folks who no longer hang out in the pub.

And saddened.

>49 suitable1: >50 hfglen: I thought the same thing. :o(

I was wondering why so quiet.

>52 maggie1944: Perhaps we are all reading ugly books. ;)

This is the prettiest one I am reading at the moment, but I don't care for the tone of the colors. The book is fun though.

Just have to add one here, so I don't lose track of the thread again. I've started reading it and am charmed by the main characters and their relationship.

Nice one. Glad the story is as nice as the cover.
Here's one I came across recently that I like a lot.

>55 Bookmarque: Gosh, I'd pick that one up.

I have an obsession with book covers and have started my own threads in various groups in order to celebrate them. And I love the covers features on LT. Periodically, since I tag for cover art, I can go and immerse myself in my collections.

Here's my collection of covers for books published pre-1950.

I’m just discovering this thread and, unfortunately, can’t see most of the early pictures. There’s now a whole group devoted to covers and, as I’ve posted over there, I won’t repeat myself here.

>47 hfglen: That’s an unfair advantage ;0) Anything with a strelitza on it looks good.

>18 Choreocrat: The trends are always changing. My favourite fantasy covers are UK editions from the eighties/ nineties especially those issued by Corgi. Many of them somehow embody ‘fantasy’ for me.



Barbara Hambly's Unschooled Wizard series.

         

Elizabeth H. Boyer's World of Alfar series

Ooh; just seeing those rainbow arcs against those vistas sends an anticipatory shiver through me.

>57 humouress: Yes, that's my favourite kind of fantasy cover too. I'm not at all keen on the current trends of faceless/hooded figures or large symbols.
Mick van Houten's work, to my mind, is the ideal.



Top: Always coming home by Ursula Le Guin
Bottom: Night lamp by Jack Vance

>58 Sakerfalcon: They evoke peacefulness.

>57 humouress: Oops; sorry about the inadvertent ad. For some reason, a few of my book cover pictures that I've picked up from the web have turned into generic pictures for those sites. Will try to correct it ...

... done.

Looks like the artist is Geoff Taylor, for those first four of Elizabeth Boyer's books:



ETA: fantasy covers in the Cover Love group

>20 Delirium9: That looks like the technique perfected by Coles Phillips, who was an illustrator for Life Magazine in the early 20th century. He focused mostly on young women and the public referred to them as "the fade-away girls."

Here is one of his book covers



Martha Grimes used the term in one of her novels, and here's it's cover:



Ah-ha! It too is by Phillips. It's merely a reverse of his 'Maid to Spy.'

Neil Gaiman tweeted this link yesterday that has some extraordinary cover art for The Graveyard Book. At the bottom of the page are original sketches by long-time collaborator Dave McKean. Thought they were worthy of posting here.

link

>61 AHS-Wolfy: Very cool!

Found this one today. Fits in perfectly!

>63 Bookmarque: WOW!

I said the same thing.

Here's another one I quite like. I remember the iguanas, but not London as a location, but I could be wrong.

Oooh look at this one -

>63 Bookmarque: >66 Bookmarque: >67 Bookmarque: Great stuff!

Thanks. Here's another!

>63 Bookmarque: That is the Polish cover for The Eyes of the Dragon? It's very cool.

Don't know, clam, but the whole series of King's books from whoever that is are really well done.

>63 Bookmarque: Very cool. Love the covers you post.

Thanks MrsL! We are arbiters of good taste!

What >72 MrsLee: said.

Another King from that same series. Wow, it's great.



Oh, it's for Night Shift - an early short story collection.

An old title, handsomely styled anew ~

>76 2wonderY: Oh, that IS nice.

Dracula is one of those books (along with Frankenstien) that inspires really awful covers or really good ones. I think this is one of the good.



If I'm not mistaken, the silhouette is lifted from the film Nosferatu. But I love the jangled landscape and the bats flying around in what appears to be daylight, but nah, it's Dracula, what's he doing up?

>78 Bookmarque: Haha, oh goodness! You are right. Has Dracula gone bats going about in the daylight?

>79 Majel-Susan: No, for the reasons that you have stated, I would count that as one of the bad covers. Also the Nosferatu reference had no relevance to Stoker's concept of Dracula.

I hate it when covers contradict the content of the book. Oh, for the days when artists actually read what they were illustrating!

ah, well, I seem to have slipped my literal leash.

How about this one?



The cover is by the artists who created the book, so is absolutely accurate.

>82 haydninvienna: One of those characters looks like a Vogon.

A pale vogon, maybe one that has heard its own poetry?

>85 -pilgrim-: Or worse, that of another Vogon?!

>83 hfglen: >84 Bookmarque: >85 -pilgrim-:
From the top, going clockwise:
Overlord (Childhood's End by Arthur C Clarke)
Sirian (The Age of the Pussyfoot by Frederik Pohl)
Regul (The Faded Sun: Kesrith by C J Cherryh)
Cinruss (Hospital Station by James White)

Here's the Regul at full page:


The copy of Barlow's Guide I have was published in Australia in 1980, so that allowing for the delays inherent in the publication process it would probably have pre-dated the Vogons. Wikipedia isn't entirely clear about when the first radio broadcasts of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy were made, but the first series was recorded in June 1977.Wikipedia says the first radio broadcasts of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy were made in March and April 1978.

>86 haydninvienna: the first radio broadcasts of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy were made in March and April 1978.
Is it embarrassing to admit that that was when and how I first encountered the Hitchhiker's Guide?

Not embarrassing at all!!!! That was its original form. The books came later. I envy you.

>87 -pilgrim-: That is something to boast about. The first time I heard about it was when a college friend in the 1970s told me they had taped all the radio episodes and was listening to them for the third time.

>87 -pilgrim-: No, not in the least embarrassing. I first encountered HHGG on ABC radio where it was first broadcast in Australia—not sure of the date but the first broadcasts outside the UK seem to have been in 1981, and that seems about right.

Hi,
I´m still newbie when it comes to the groups here on Librarything. So let´s see if I can figure out to post a cover:



Yeah, it worked.

Anyhow, this is my most recent addition to my Penguin English Library collection. And the cover design of this collection is simply stunning. I like the simplicity of it, how they thematically refer to the content or the feel of the book and I love that they bring a dash of color to my bookshelf.

>75 Bookmarque: I was confused for a little bit, because at a first glance I didn´t see a rat sitting on top of a pipe, but one of these sandworms from "Dune". And I have read Stephen Kings "Nightshift" quite a few times when I was a teenager, so I knew there weren´t any kind of sandworms in that book.
These King covers are gorgeous, btw.

Ooh nice one, Lille! And yeah, it can take your eyes a second to really see that King cover.

>92 Lille_lara: You are not alone...

>91 Lille_lara: I can't see your image? Instead I see a black box with the words, "The image you are requesting does not exist or is no longer available."

>95 MrsLee: I accidentally deleted the picture on my Imgur page, so the link didn´t work anymore. I´m so sorry about that and I fixed it. Thanks for the heads up :)

I've just finished cataloguing the Kate Greenaway medal winners for illustrations and I really like Jan Pieńkowski's 1971 winner for Joan Aiken's The Kingdom Under the Sea:

>97 Awards-and-Medals: Yes, Jan Pieńkowski's illustrative work was always of an extremely high standard, in my opinion.

>96 Lille_lara:, I see it now, very nice.

>97 Awards-and-Medals: Ooooo, I like that!

>97 Awards-and-Medals: Jan Pienkowski was one of the greats, for sure.

Oooh that is a pretty one!

Here's one that caught my eye -

I always loved the original cover for A Spell for Chameleon by Piers Anthony. Really, most of his books all seemed to have wonderful covers. I love the fantasy artwork. Also, I remember as a teenager buying The Unicorn Creed strictly because of the cover art and ultimately it became one of my favorite stories ever. Unfortunately, I cannot remember how to insert pictures into posts here.

To insert a photo, you need to use html tags.

>102 Jenson_AKA_DL: This post will help. https://www.librarything.com/topic/177029. If you copy the image into your member gallery and then the junk drawer, it will be easier to include.

Do you mean the cover with the large manticore and man on the front, in what looks like a castle doorway, by Michael Whelan? That's a great cover!

One of my favorites, just for the simple effectiveness of the design:

Oooh that's a good one.

I like this because there are four swords.

>106 Bookmarque: Yes! That shows the artist knows the book.

An interesting book with a great cover -

another that caught my attention -

>109 Bookmarque: Ooohh... have you read that one? That cover is wonderfully evocative of the story within. The movie is really good too. Fair warning: it's a disturbing tale in either format so not recommended for the squeamish.

Yes, I've read it. I own a very early copy. Haven't seen the adaptation.

With covers being so wonky right now, it's a little hard to find good ones, but this one caught my attention -

Pina Bausch by Rosita Boisseau

Image isn't showing up, hnau. 😕

>112 Bookmarque:
A superb film.

I read the book a couple of years ago and enjoyed it very much.

>115 pgmcc: And yet again you are putting zither music into my head.

>116 -pilgrim-: Your mentioning the music has suitably retaliated my effect on your mind's ears.

Darn, dar, dar, dar, dar,... dar , dar...dring

>114 Bookmarque: >113 hnau: This cover seems to be quite stubborn. I hope it's working now...

I see it now. She needs a wheelbarrow! Nice one. I like the simplicity.

This one struck me, too. For the Holmes novel.

>121 Bookmarque: Another good one!

Thanks! Just came across this one.



It's unusually natural and pretty for a noir cover. Just hope Marlowe isn't gunning for that hummingbird.

Which makes me remember a line from The Little Sister I think. Marlowe was remarking on the quality of someone's wit - 'sharp as a hummingbird's beak'.

I just had to post this one and that the book is apparently, juvenile. Not sure if it's an abridgment or an illustrated version or what. The flower motif and the neckbolts are priceless next to his deep contemplation.

Another cool one -

>124 Bookmarque: That's an interesting take on a Frankenstein cover.

I think it's a scene from the 1930s movie - I don't remember it from the book in the same way. It was perfectly parodied in Young Frankenstein. The monster happens upon a young girl at a well playing with flowers - throwing petals in. When she invites him to play he does, but pitches a bit more than a fit when he runs out of petals and/or flowers.

>125 Bookmarque: I like the vantage point from above, looking down on the house. The skewed angles that result add a nice touch of horror.

>125 Bookmarque: The house looks like Granny Weatherwax's cottage.

Here's another one I quite like -

One more!

>131 Bookmarque: That one is horrible when you scroll past it!

Hand painted first edition. This score belonged to Ernest Bloch (property stamp inside).

Found another beauty this am -

>134 Bookmarque: Oooo, I like that one!

>134 Bookmarque: I love that!

I think it's pretty gorgeous, too. How about this one?

>137 Bookmarque: Very nice.

Thanks. I like finding beauties. Like this one -

>139 Bookmarque: Ooh, that is gorgeous!

Isn't it?

This one came up today. Pretty fitting.

>104 Karlstar: Yes, the one with the manticore :-)

Trying this out....

and this one....



>104 Karlstar: Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!!

Here's a fun one!

>143 Jenson_AKA_DL: Always been a fan of that book and that cover!

>145 Bookmarque: That's a great edition of that book. I was amused recently when a bookstore had a poster of both 'The Invisible Man' and one of 'Invisible Man' on the same wall, I assume deliberately.

swoons

>147 Bookmarque: Where do you find all these gems?

In the cover feed on the home page module.

>147 Bookmarque: I love that! The eye!!!

A Gorey cover!! So great.



It's for The Water-method Man by John Irving. The only Irving I can stand & laugh-out-loud funny.

I love Edward Gorey! His work is unmistakable.

>152 Sakerfalcon: Thanks, so do I. My Gashlycrumbs Tinies lunchboxes are a prized posession!

Resized - sorry!!

This one is also Gorey-esque, but I'm not 100% sure. I like it, but not the book, however.

That's suitably creepy!

The Art of the Metaobject Protocol by Gregor Kiczales

Systematische Theologie der Puritaner (A Puritan Theology, German edition) by Joel R. Beeke

>156 hnau: How beautiful. I had to look that one up and learn what it’s about. It is practically medieval now, published in 1991.

>156 hnau: Wow!

Let's see if I can get this image thing to work. Is the only way to actually go into your junk drawer, click on the image then select 'view image'? Seems convoluted, but it works.

>160 Karlstar: Good one!

I just right click on cover and copy the image address, then use html tags as usual to put it in here. I'll sometimes adjust the size if it's too big.

A couple of neat ones from my recently-reads:

.

And here's the most recent edition of my favorite book. Not necessarily my favorite cover, but arguably the most interesting:

That Shardik cover caught my eye, too. I've never read it but had a copy for years until I ditched it.

Found this one today -



And this one is pretty interesting -

>161 Bookmarque: Could you copy your tags here, minus the being and end delimeters, so we can see them?

>164 Karlstar: sure I'll give it a go.

img src="Image URL goes here"height="520" width="320"/img

Surf, Skate & Rock Art of Jim Phillips

Beautiful, but musta been cold out. Or as my oldest friend and I say - a bit nipply. How she manages this effect through her steel brassiere I have no idea. Must be a superpower.

>168 Bookmarque:
a bit nipply

Very supple!

How bizarre.

>170 Bookmarque: Very nice.

This Book Is Full of Spiders

>172 saltmanz: I have that book, with that cover. The cover is entirely appropriate.

>172 saltmanz: I have the Kindle version of that (and have read it). That's been one of my favorite covers since the time I first saw it. :)

If you don't have a copy of Black Beauty cataloged, you won't see covers uploaded by a user who only catalogs this book. Not sure why, but many of the covers are gorgeous.

https://www.librarything.com/catalog/ASBB/yourlibrary

>175 Bookmarque: Fortunately, I have an ancient copy also. I agree, some of those are superb.

>175 Bookmarque: What a marvelous project! Represents a LOT of work. Now I’m curious whether there are other member accounts like that.

>175 Bookmarque: Interesting! I guess I could create a collection of some of my books with a particular title or author and achieve a similar effect.

This one caught my eye today -

I propose this one:

... partly because I really think it's beautiful and partly because it gives you next to no idea of what the book is about. (Loved the book too.)

>180 haydninvienna: That's a cool one. Is it speculative or science fiction?

>181 Bookmarque: Best answer I can give is to quote bragan recently:

This surreal time travel love story features two women we know only by the names Red and Blue, agents of two cruel warring factions vying to... Well, it's never spelled out with perfect clarity exactly what they're trying to do, now that I think of it. To be the one true, ultimate future of every timeline, perhaps, although to put it in those terms makes this sound like a very different kind of story than it is. Its logic has more of the feel of a dream or fairytale, often, than anything else. That's true of the ways in which these two people move in and out of time, altering events with subtle nudges or violent destruction, and even more so of the bizarre ways in which they leave each other the messages through which they develop their growing bond. It's something that I suspect, in a longer work, might grow frustrating or wearying, but at a mere 200 pages, that never gets the chance to happen, and instead we get something that is... That is... Well, OK, honestly, I have no idea how to even start describing it, but it was weird and fascinating and kind of beautiful.

From here.

I love these viewing puzzles.
I saw the tree long before the couple

Me too, but there they are.

>180I am reading this right now! (Well, not right now as I'm at work, but it's on my current reading rotation!) I do love the cover.

>183 -pilgrim-: If you hadn't implied that there was more to the cover than the tree I might not have seen the other image at all.

>186 subscrptionboxes: Hmm. Print-only by the looks of it. I might have taken a punt if digital subscriptions were available, but I'm not going to clutter up my shelves with unknown authors I might not read again.

Thinking about it, the above user looks rather spammy to me.

Another cool Dracula cover -

Oh! Now I want an alphabet book like that.

The new series of classics with the alphabet covers is pretty great. Dracula seems to always get cool covers -

I thought this cover was stunning. I've just finished reading this book.

Even though there is no mention of neck bolts, electricity or any real info about how Frankenstein creates life, they are part of the collective consciousness.

>192 Bookmarque: You've reminded me I need to put that on my TBR pile.

It's better than the popular movies make it out to be.

Here's another good one -

>194 Bookmarque: I like that! My copy has this cover, which I love

The Penguin cover is a popular one. Feels right for the story.

Found this one today -

The cover shown here must win some sort of award for being wildly misleading—pretty well everything on the cover is in the book, but not in the way the cover makes it seem.

I think you forgot to add it, Richard! A bit of a mind-slip. I suffer from them often.

>198 Bookmarque:
I can see it via the link in the word “here”.

>198 Bookmarque: >199 pgmcc: :-)!

Oh, I got it now. Couldn't see the link when I first looked. Old age. Yeah, that's it.

And yeah, that cover is wrong in so many ways. Maybe we should do an absurd book covers thread.

>201 Bookmarque: Good Show Sir (see#198) has that pretty well covered for SFF, but no reason why we couldn’t do so for other covers.

Ok, I'll start one when I find the right stupid cover. That's kind of what I'm thinking of - say a picture of a pick up truck on the cover of Pride & Prejudice or something like that. When shit is just flat wrong, misleading or perplexing. Sound right? That way this one is for the beauties.

>203 Bookmarque: Sounds like a fun thread!

I've always thought this cover was an interesting one - the book isn't a bad read either.

>197 haydninvienna: As soon as I read your post, I assumed that the link would lead to Good Show Sir.

>206 -pilgrim-: :-)

Here are a couple that caught my eye recently -

Some of these covers are gorgeous! Others are interesting but definitely NOT beautiful. In honor of October, which, because of Halloween I like to read horror stories, I offer a cover that I consider one of the two most beautiful I've seen:


A Night in the Lonesome October

ETA that the book is really good too. I've decided to make it a tradition to reread it every October.

>205 alco261: I think I have that book somewhere hereabouts.

Here are a few that have caught my eye lately -

Another today and so perfectly appropriate to the book and the season -



It's for The Elementals by Michael McDowell which has grown on me since my first reading.

The Age of Insight by Eric R. Kandel

Oooh that's a nice one.

Another cool Frankenstein cover -

Another fun cover for a classic -

>216 Bookmarque: I love that!

My edition of Dracula is illustrated by Gorey, but doesn't have this cover which is wonderful!

Another beauty!

I found this one rather striking -

>220 Bookmarque: Are you starting a new thread for 2022? This one hasn't loaded properly for me for months, I suspect due to being too long. It always stops loading at a post from somewhere in the first half of 2021.

I didn't start this one, but I can put a fresh one up if this is too unwieldy. With my next cover find I can do that.

>222 Bookmarque: You are right, sorry! I always associate you with this thread though.

>216 Bookmarque: Love this one

I thought that one was pretty cool, too Silversi. Like a woodcut.

Topic is now continued.